


Subject: Us

by evilstoryteller



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU, Angst, E-mail, M/M, Post-Break Up, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 16:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14697660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilstoryteller/pseuds/evilstoryteller
Summary: Things ended, but not everything is over.  Some time after their break-up, Keith decides to finally tell Lance things he never did when they were together.





	Subject: Us

**Author's Note:**

> Based on real events. Maybe.  
> Also, my thanks to @littlemaple for showing me the ropes around here and writing the summary ♥

From: kogane.k@vldmail.com

To: lance.mclance@vldmail.com

 

Lance,

 

I began this message a thousand times. This is the one that I managed to finish.

 

I’m scared to run into you. But some days I scan the train station, hoping that I will see you far away, but that you won’t see me, though. And every time that happens, every time it crosses my mind, I happen to move too fast and the light tricks me and I see a glimpse of your colors, of your shape, and I’m scared to take a real look and be sure it’s you. Days like those make me think… In those days I think of you. And it’s like I fall into a hole and I’m Alice, drowning in a wonderland of memories that I’m too terrified to look into because... I don’t wanna look at it and see a mistake.

I know I ended things. I know I decided it. And I knew the price of deciding it was to bear all the doubts and regrets, but that it also was the right decision for me, and for you. I know you don’t believe me, or at least you didn’t when I told you we were breaking up. I remember you wanted me to convince you that splitting up was the best option we had… I laughed. Not really because it was funny, but because it made me face that blinding difference about us again. I know that in a relationship everyone is blind, but I was willing to grope around, to find a way in the dark, and you were not. And then, when we looked in the mirror I saw a disaster waiting to happen, and you saw a happy couple. What right did I have to destroy the image you were seeing, just because the one I saw wasn’t as pretty? The question haunts me and in haunting me, it gives me a little reassurance, because in some way I get to suffer, too. I get to pay for the choice I made. I wish you knew that. Maybe that’s why I wish I would run into you so you could see it, in my face, that I suffer too. Maybe that’s also what scares me.

Funny thing about ending things before they actually go to hell, right? You get to suffer all the same, but people judge you because “it was all so great” or “you had no good reason to end it”. You’re not the only one that needed convincing. Maybe I couldn’t convince you because I was too busy trying to convince myself first. I still am, cause when I think of those sunny afternoons with you, I…

Remember the stupid names, _Sir Lancelot_? It was so uninspired of me, and yet you loved it so much you felt the need to make my own name fancier, too. I never talked about that with anyone, I still keep that nickname between us… Or at least between me and my memories of us. Remember as we were in bed, looking at the ceiling, talking about silly things, playing video games — I miss beating the crap out of you, by the way — and then… Then I’d say I was hungry or sleepy, and you would offer me coffee. You always made the best coffee. I mean, seriously, I watched you doing it and there was nothing special about the way you did it — maybe the fact that it was done in your Guardians of the Galaxy underwear? — but it always turned out the best goddamn coffee I’ve ever had. Then we would eat, you inhaled your food first because you were always so busy, you couldn’t do it any other way, and I watched. You told me you were so happy, that days like those saved your weeks, sometimes your months. You would say so, sitting along the wide side of the table, making a mess and using up all the space, and I watched from the corner, smiling. This image will be forever burned in my mind, forever making me wonder. Do you see the trap in that pretty picture?

How could you see it, though? Your life was so messy, work, family, gym, work again, your friends, and you hated it all, everything was wrong, you told me so countless times, and then, in the most isolated corner, there I stood, smiling. _The only good thing in your life_. You told me that a few times. And when you were sad about the rest, when work wasn’t good, when your family was getting to you, you would talk to me, and I jumped to help. When all of your friends stopped seeing you, I offered you mine. When your parents were judgemental I hugged you and shared my own experiences. When your relationship with work was abusive, I made sure you confronted it. I wanted to help, I wanted to make things better for you. I wanted so desperately to fix something for you, so I didn’t have to be _the only good thing in your life_. It was over when I realized that, but I didn’t finish it right away, I needed to be responsible, I needed to give you the chance to see what I was seeing. But you were so happy.

How could I do this to you? But you always told me to share everything that was bothering me, so I felt encouraged, I felt hope. So I told you, I told you in a lot of words, as many words as I could find, I told you that _it_ _wasn’t okay for me to be the only good thing in your life_. I used so many words, except those. I still don’t know if I was protecting you and your happiness from hearing that sentence, or if I was trying to spare myself the burden of saying it outright and then have to shoulder another relationship with you, a fixed relationship, a second trial. It was really coward of me, thinking I could do or say anything you couldn’t handle. It meant I didn’t really trust you, I guess. It meant I was also comfortable inside something I didn’t know what it was, but when I saw the need of change, I deserted it. You were willing to change, I remember. Nobody asking to be convinced of a break up is that much ready to give up. I denied it, though. You asked me for the chance to fix things, to be happy and help me be happy too, and I told you _no._

I had to be adamant. I couldn't be anything else, otherwise I’d crack. I would come back to the same set of habits that made me believe we couldn't work. I didn’t wanna feel like your pair of crutches again. I am barely my own. But I wanted to say that I miss you, or at least what we had together, those little things only we both shared. The smell of a perfume, the afternoons gaming, the touch, the greatest coffee ever, the silly nicknames...

I wanted to tell you that I’m bleeding too. And in saying so, I hope that if we ever do run into each other at the train station, and our eyes meet, we can just smile, say hello, and go on.

 

Best,

 

_Sir Keithnald._

 


End file.
